Sendo assim, um ser-para-a-morte: vivências da espiritualidade de pacientes e familiares experienciando os Cuidados Paliativos em Oncologia

Abstract

Palliative care refers to a modality of care offered to people affected by a chronic or acute disease that seriously threatens their lives. The philosophy in force in this approach guarantees holistic care to the individual who is welcomed in its biopsychosocial and spiritual dimensions. More and more spirituality has gained focus in health research due to its positive influence on coping with chronic diseases, especially neoplasms. However, the spiritual needs of these patients are generally not effectively met due to the lack of preparation of public health systems in Brazil. Based on this understanding, this research aimed to understand the experience of the spirituality of people in Palliative Care from the perspective of Martin Heidegger's Hermeneutic Ontology. Of a qualitative nature, the phenomenological method of research in psychology was used, through the phenomenological interview recorded audio, which started from a fundamental question. Six participants were interviewed, three patients and three family members, all of them monitored by the Amazonas State Oncology Control Center Foundation (FCECON). Data were collected after the approval of the Ethics Committee of UFAM, authorization of the competent institution and signing of the Free and Informed Consent Form (TCLE). For the analysis of the interviews, the phenomenological-psychological method of research in Psychology was considered. The following categories were found: a) And suddenly, everything changed: from the first symptoms to the discovery of the diagnosis; b) Putting on the captain's hat and touching the boat forward: the various confrontations of cancer; c) Suffer-with: cancer is a battle of the whole family; d) With God, the possibility of finding a meaning for suffering; e) Face-to-face with finitude: life in palliative care. Among the reflections proposed with the research, it is concluded that the multidimensionality of the experiences of the participants, patients and family members, in the face of a disease that is overwhelming and radically modifies their lives, revealing the urgent character in offering spaces of reception and biopsychosocial and spiritual listening to those who experience an experience that causes so much suffering, fear, union, faith and persistence.